


Becoming Athos

by lynndyre



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Beginnings, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paris was where he went to lose himself. Instead he found something greater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming Athos

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Framlingem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/gifts).



The year was that of our Lord, 1625, though this particular year, in Athos’ view, seemed as much inspired from beneath as from above. It was September, and the Marquis de Toires had taken many of the regiments under the King’s orders to recapture the Isle del Re from Huguenot control. The Musketeers sent troops as well. And Athos, by the vagaries of life, was now a Musketeer.

It was not what he set out to do, leaving his estate. He had come to Paris seeking only a place to be other than himself, a city crowded enough to disappear. He had sought out none of those he knew, none of the lords or counts or officers he had met growing up, or during his earlier service. Nothing of higher society at all.

Instead he looked for the darker taverns. The places that were as dirty as the men, where people watched each other for threat, not merely for gossip. He drank bad wine, sharp, and often watered, barely enough to numb his thoughts, and when the bottom of the cup threatened to drag him in, he looked out across the room, trying to bring his surroundings into reality around him.

The men were rough, and crude, and selfish. The women smiled falsely under unhappy eyes, and Olivier looked swiftly away. Here were the dregs of Paris, the dregs of humanity, the worthless people. And Olivier belonged among them.

Something angry in the pit of his chest wanted to rage, wanted to insist he was better than all of this, than all of them. That he had been better than her.

But no.

She was his wife. Whatever else, he had loved her. Married her. Raised her to his station, and found an equal—he thought, in love. In the end, an equal in dealing death. 

Whatever had been in her of evil, something of it was in him, too.

Olivier had looked away from the light, away from the unreal, unwashed nobodies, and emptied the bottle into his cup.

Summer and coin had vanished in like manner.

There was a boy, outside one of the taverns he visited. Guards in the livery of Cardinal Richelieu’s men, three on one, and not an arrest – their tone is only taunts and goading, seeking to provoke a fight. Olivier obliged them. The fight was easy, the bruises rewarding. The boy was almost an afterthought, though older than Olivier had first supposed. He bought Olivier a drink, and told him stories about Landes, where the shepherds followed their flocks about on stilts.

Perhaps Olivier had drunk more than he thought.

The boy, Phillipe, complimented Olivier’s skill and thanked him for his help. It was strange, so very strange, to be seen again, to be considered a worthy man in someone else’s eyes. Perhaps that was what had made him agree to meet the boy again, to come to the garrison where he served, and meet the Captain Treville that Phillipe idolized. To consider fighting for the King once more.

His other reason had been darker.

It would be a simple matter to find his end in combat. Pride rather than the desire for continuance kept him fighting. To die badly, to lose to disorganized, reckless scum, that was a prospect his pride, the anger at his core would not tolerate. To die well would be a relief.

When the Captain asked his name, Olivier gave it as Athos. And with that twofold reasoning, Athos became a Musketeer. 

Whatever he had expected, the regiment proved to be a sanctuary, his fellows a balm on whatever remained of Athos’ soul. When he is on duty, his mind is required to be away from Anne, and so duty becomes his first breath of air again, the first taste that makes his lungs expand in his chest, drinking in the possibility of moments without constant guilt.

Athos had never made friends easily, and Anne had drained away much of any remaining inclination to trust. Yet with shared purpose, shared enemies, the strange sense of unity that binds the Musketeers together, he found himself growing connected to his fellows in spite of his temperament and reservations.

He was not the only Musketeer holding back. The regiment’s best marksman was a smiling, handsome man called Aramis, but Athos saw the way he watched the courtyard, weighing them all in his mind.

On the opposite hand, there was Porthos. On the surface of it, Athos would have been hard pressed to find a man whose philosophy of life was more different from his own. He was scarred. He had lived, and hurt, and it was written on his body, but his eyes were unshadowed, his smile undimmed. He laughed, and bared his teeth at the world, and was reckless enough with a pistol that Athos bit his tongue to choke back remonstrations. He touched easily, even Athos, who found he had missed such human contact.

The Musketeers were arguably the best thing that could have happened, at the worst point in Athos’ life. It was a contradiction that sat ill with him, and he was loath to surrender to it too easily.

The fall campaign began, Louis XIII’s push to retake the Isle del Re, and Athos knew the distance he’d tried to maintain for the fallacy it was. This was full battle, not a friendly enmity with the Cardinal’s Guard, a hunt for criminals, a chasing of spies. And these men were Athos’ brothers, carving their way by inches into the hollowed-out places in his heart. 

The summer had vanished without thought, but September is poured out in blood slower than treacle, until the days blend into the nights. October is close. Victory is close. The Huguenots are closer.

Montmercy and his fleet take La Rochelle. Toiras and the landed troops take the island. Soubise flees to England, the self-styled Admiral running away from his failure. But not without losses, and Phillipe was one of them. Athos found there was still enough left of his soul to hurt.

Henri also fell, and died quickly, one of the large veins in his leg cut through. Athos saw Aramis flinch at his body, as he has never flinched from sword or musket or cannonfire. He made the sign of the cross, and offered a prayer for Henri in perfect Latin, though his voice caught on the words. Athos grasped his arm, and turned him away, and when their eyes met it was with a depth of understanding they would rather not share.

It would be easier if they did not care. But they do. So all that is left is to keep everyone possible alive.

Athos watched Porthos’ rapier break, steel sundered by the strength of the blow, and stepped into the space it left exposed. Porthos would be quick to find a new weapon, but until he did so his reach was reduced, he was unable to parry strikes, and Athos would not any of them near him. In the end it didn’t matter, one of the Protestants had enough powder remaining to reload, and the ball took Athos in the side and sent him to the ground.

He woke in Porthos’ arms, held against his chest like a child, nose full of the smell of blood and leather. The noise of the fighting was quiet. Over. For the day? Or for longer than that? He felt lips brush his forehead, a strange, gentle touch, and Porthos murmured “Easy. You’re alright, you bastard,” into his hair.

Beside them, hands busy with his pistol, Aramis offered a smile, and a little tilt of his head. “Mind my needlework.” Athos nodded, and felt the unfamiliar pull of a smile at the corner of his own mouth.

He hurt, but he would not die. He found, strangely, this pleased him. The little fire at the pit of his soul burned, fed with satisfaction and purpose.

And with brotherhood.


End file.
